Bruce and Cindy's Travels

Bruce and Cindy's Travels
Follow us as we travel around the county in our 5th wheel

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Sedona, Meteor Crater, Painted Desert and Petrified Forest (from 2013)

Well, Bruce said we have to finish last years trip before we can start blogging 2014's trip, so....
Our next stop was in Sedona, Arizona, beautiful!!!  Below are some pictures taken in town and one of the surrounding red hills.






We visited several Indian ruins which are National Monument sites.  So much history!  Below are pictures of Montezuma Well. Montezuma Well's outflow has been used for irrigation since the 8th century. Part of a prehistoric canal is preserved at the picnic ground, and portions of the original Sinagua canal are still in use today.




Next we visited Montezuma Castle.  These cliff dwellings were built by the Southern Sinagua culture between 1100 and 1425 CE. The structure is five stories and took about five centuries to complete.  It is amazing that parts of the dwellings are still intact!  Here is the link to the National Parks webpage:   http://www.nps.gov/moca/index.htm







Picture of a huge bee hive Bruce spotted in the cliff wall!


Next we visited Tuzigoot National Monument, which was also built by Sinagua people around 1000 AD.  This one was built on top of a hill and you could walk thru the ruins!





Sedona is definitely on our list of places to visit again, but, it was time to move on towards home.  Our next stop on the way home was Meteor Crater in Arizona.  It really is just to big to describe!  In the second picture below, you can see people on a platform PART of the way down into the crater!!





Couldn't leave Arizona without a drive thru the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. 






It is hard to believe that this was at one time a tree!